Caitlin Flanagan on Turning 60

I've been following Caitlin Flanagan's writing through the years. Many of her pieces are concise, enjoyable and very real. I love her wit and sharp observations on social trends and human concerns. This recent piece is particularly poignant to me. 

Published in The Atlantic on November 14, 2021, it's titled 'The Day I Got Old'. The tagline followed, 'It just suddenly happened, and there isn’t a sports car in the world I can buy to make it otherwise.'

It's a personal piece about the writer turning 60, and feeling her age. She made it through a round of chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer. She's still independent, sharp and mobile enough. But she's tired, and feeling the decades weigh down. 

Imho, getting to an age and feeling it are two rather separate things. One is a physical milestone, which isn't dependable especially if you die before that, or you get sickly before that. The other is an emotional hurdle. It's a hurdle that you have to cross — something to make you accept your age, accept yourself, what you've made of your life, and also your mortality and being brave enough to look at Death's door. 

Anyway, I felt a tingle of panic. In my youth I spent a lot of time sitting on the floors of airports, waiting for dirt-cheap flights that were always delayed by many hours. An 18-year-old girl sitting on the floor looks like she’s on an adventure. A 60-year-old woman looks like she’s in need of assistance. I walked to the next gate, but there were no chairs there either, or at the next one.

Finally I saw a mirage: three empty seats in a row. They were real, but (damn it) they were reserved for other people, people who need some extra help. I long ago promised myself that no matter what happened, I was never going to do any learning or growing from cancer. But there’s one lesson that you can’t be this sick for this long without learning: There is no such thing as other people. There’s just all of us, with our secret or public burdens, muddling through the best we can, many of us not doing an especially good job of it. There was a time when I could manage my cancer without having to understand myself as “disabled,” but at 60, that time has passed.

I sat down, and my bones settled so heavily around me—and the relief was so immediate—that I knew I’d done the right thing. But I also knew that through that simple, necessary gesture, I had become old. 

I'm 43. I love this period of my life. The forties are seriously fabulous. I've never lost a sense of who I am. My confidence has been shaken here and there, but I've never lost it. Will I crumble? Of course. I have crumbled, and am fortunate to have friends to help me up. However, I'm not sure I'll enjoy turning 50. And after that, if I'm still alive, those will be termed as my twilight years. 

I'm very happy with what I have made of my life for the past two decades. I thought I'd be a trailblazer, but I made another choice that I'm contented with. I have a continued sense of achievement and I still have a sense of satisfaction from what I do. I'll be 60 soon enough. Healthy and mobile still, if I'm lucky. I don't know when I will feel those decades come crashing down. I don't know if I look forward to that moment. It would most certainly be a painful and reflective moment.  

Two decades will fly by in the blink of an eye. What those two future decades will hold, are utterly unknown. I have charted my path in life till now to no regrets. I'll need to utilize all my remaining years to walk a path that I'm proud to call my own when I die, hopefully with my faculties intact. Wrinkles, a head of silver hair and creaky joints with minor aches would be the least of my concerns. Dohhhhh.